U.S. patent number 4,066,321 [Application Number 05/755,523] was granted by the patent office on 1978-01-03 for electrical connector.
This patent grant is currently assigned to AMP Incorporated. Invention is credited to Francisco Villazon.
United States Patent |
4,066,321 |
Villazon |
January 3, 1978 |
Electrical connector
Abstract
An electrical connector for electrically connecting the
conductive cores of insulated wires has external bosses on its
housing to indicate the type of connection provided by the
connector.
Inventors: |
Villazon; Francisco (Barcelona,
ES) |
Assignee: |
AMP Incorporated (Harrisburg,
PA)
|
Family
ID: |
9729036 |
Appl.
No.: |
05/755,523 |
Filed: |
December 30, 1976 |
Foreign Application Priority Data
|
|
|
|
|
Jan 17, 1976 [UK] |
|
|
1846/76 |
|
Current U.S.
Class: |
439/398;
439/488 |
Current CPC
Class: |
H01R
4/2445 (20130101) |
Current International
Class: |
H01R
4/24 (20060101); H01R 007/04 () |
Field of
Search: |
;339/59,75P,97-99,276SF,113R,113B |
References Cited
[Referenced By]
U.S. Patent Documents
Primary Examiner: McGlynn; Joseph H.
Attorney, Agent or Firm: Osborne; Allan B.
Claims
What is claimed is:
1. An improvement to an electrical connector of the type having a
housing having notches on its end walls and containing first and
second electrical contacts with each contact having spaced apart
wire-receiving slotted plates, said plates being in alignment with
said notches, and at least one wire severing edge associated with
at least one of said notches and a closure member adapted to force
insulated wires into the slotted plates and to force at least one
wire across the wire severing edge, the improvement comprising, an
external boss on the housing adjacent each of said notches through
which the wires may extend after being forced into the slotted
plates.
2. A plurality of housings for use in the production of electrical
connectors as claimed in claim 1, the housings being formed
integrally with each other in a strip, joined end to end by means
of the bosses thereon.
3. An improvement to an electrical connector of the type having a
housing having notches on its end walls and containing first and
second electrical contacts with each contact having spaced apart
wire-receiving slotted plates, said plates being in alignment with
said notches, and at least one wire severing edge associated with
at least one of said notches and a closure member adapted to force
insulated wires into the slotted plates and to force at least one
wire across the wire severing edge, the improvement comprising, an
external boss on the housing adjacent each of said notches having a
wire severing edge associated therewith.
Description
This invention relates to an electrical connector and to a strip of
such electrical connectors.
In U.S. Pat. No. 3,835,444 there is described an electrical
connector for electrically connecting the conductive cores of
insulated wires, the connector comprising an insulating housing
having an aperture for providing access to the interior of the
housing, a closure member hingedly connected to the housing at one
side and movable to a closed position to close the aperture in the
housing, the housing and closure members having co-operating
latching members which engage to latch the closure member to the
housing in the closing position, the housing containing first and
second metal plates positioned with an edge of each plate facing
the aperture in the housing, there being a plurality of slots
opening into such edges of each plate, each slot in each plate bing
aligned with a slot of the other plate and being capable of
receiving an insulated wire forced into the slot by the closure
member as the closure member is moved to its closed position, so
that the edges of the slot penetrate the insulation of the wire to
make electrical contact with the conductive core of the wire, there
being a wire severing edge associated with only one slot of at
least one of the pairs of aligned slots and disposed on the side of
the slot remote from the other slot of the aligned pair, the or
each wire serving edge being positioned for co-operation with the
closure member to trim a wire received in the associated slot as
the wire is forced into the slot by the closure member.
Preferably the housing has wire receiving notches in its end walls
each aligned with one of the slots, and through which wires to be
connected by the connector can enter and leave the housing.
Such connectors are especially suitable for interconnection of the
wires of multi-wire telephone cables to provide splice or tap
connections thereon.
The type of connection eg. tap, butt splice or through splice, for
which any connector is of use, is determined by the number and
positioning of the wire severing edges provided in the connector.
For example, considering connectors for two wires, a tap connector
would have only one wire severing edge, a butt splice would have
two wire severing edges both at the same end of the connector, and
a through splice connector would have two wire severing edges, one
at each end of the connector and for different wires.
Clearly in a collection of such connectors containing more than one
type of the connector, it would be difficult to select a required
connector of a particular type by searching on the basis of looking
for a connector having the correct number of wire severing edges in
the correct positions, and thus it would be advantageous if the
connector housing were clearly externally coded to indicate the
type of connector.
According to this invention an electrical connector of the type set
out above has an external boss on the housing adjacent either the
or each wire receiving notch having no wire severing edge
associated with the aligned slot, or the or each wire receiving
notch having a wire severing edge associated with the aligned
slot.
Thus, a connector according to this invention is readily
identifiable as to type from the number and positioning of the
external bosses on the housing, this also indicating the manner in
which wires are to be introduced into the connector.
A further advantage of the connector of this invention is that a
plurality thereof can be provided in strip form with the housings
thereof joined end to end by means of bosses. Such provision of a
plurality of connectors renders them suitable for use with
automatic or semi-automatic application tooling.
Initially with such a strip of housings there will be a boss on
each housing adjacent each wire receiving notch therein, but when
the housings are cut from the strip the connecting bosses can be
cut so as to give each housing the required coding as discussed
above. Such cutting of the strip can be carried out either manually
or automatically by an appropriately set up application tool.
This invention will now be described by way of example with
reference to the drawings, in which:
FIG. 1 is a plan view of a tap connector according to the
invention; and
FIG. 2 is an end view of the connector of FIG. 1;
FIG. 3 is a section on the line III-III in FIG. 1;
FIG. 4 is a plan view of a butt splice connector according to the
invention;
FIG. 5 is a plan view of a through splice connector according to
the invention;
FIG. 6 is a diagrammatic plan view of a strip of connectors
according to the invention.
Referring to FIGS. 1 to 3, the connector here shown is for
electrically connecting the conductive cores of two insulated wires
(not shown) and comprises an insulating housing 1 having an
aperture 2 for providing access to the interior of the housing 1. A
closure member in the form of a lid 3 is hingedly connected at 4 to
the housing 1 and is movable to a closed position to close the
aperture 2. The housing 1 and lid 3 have co-operating latching
members comprising a recess 5 and a shouldered arm 6 which engage
in known manner to latch the lid 3 to the housing 1 in the closed
position.
The housing 1 contains an electrical contact 7 (FIG. 3) which
provides two edges 8 which face the aperture 2, there being two
slots 9 which open into each edge 8 of the contact 7. The slots 9
are arranged in two pairs, the slots of each pair being coaxial and
with their axis parallel to and spaced from that of the other pair
of slots.
For use of the connector an insulated wire is positioned over each
pair of aligned slots 9 and the lid 3 is then moved to its latched
closed position over the aperture 2 such that suffer portions 10 on
the lid 3 urge the wires into the slots 9 thereby electrically to
connect the wires to the contact 7, and thus to each other in known
manner, the wires entering the housing 1 through wire receiving
notches 13 in the end walls of the housing 1.
As mentioned the connector shown in FIGS. 1 to 3 is for making tap
connections, and thus one wire is to pass through the connector
while the other wire terminates at the connector.
The connector thus has one wire severing edge 11 formed on the
contact 7 in line with one of the slots 9, this being the top
right-hand slot in FIG. 1, between the associated slot 9 and the
end of the housing 1. In use of the connector, the wire severing
edge 11 co-operates with the lid 3 to trim the wire received in the
associated slot 9 as the wire is forced into the slot 9 by the lid
3. This wire only is thus terminated at the connector as necessary
as described above, to provide the desired tap connection.
In order to indicate to a user of the connector the type of the
connector, that is that it is a connector for providing a tap
connection, and also to indicate the position of the wire severing
edge 11 in the connector, the housing 1 is provided with three
external bosses 12 adjacent the three wire receiving notches 13 in
the ends of the housing 1, through which a connected wire will
enter the connector. No boss 12 is provided adjacent the wire
receiving notch 13 aligned with the wire severing edge 11 since no
connected wire will enter the housing 1 through this notch 13 after
closing the lid 3.
Thus, the three bosses 12 code the connector to indicate that it is
a connector to provide a tap connection, and that the through wire
must be positioned in the lower pair of slots 9 in FIG. 1, while
the tap wire must be positioned in the upper pair of slots 9 in
FIG. 1 to leave the connector by the upper left-hand slot in FIG.
1.
FIGS. 4 and 5 show views of connectors similar to that of FIG. 1,
and will not therefore be described in detail. The only difference
between the connectors shown are in the number and/or positioning
of wire severing edges 11, and thus in the number and/or
positioning of bosses 12.
The connector shown in FIG. 4 is for providing a butt splice
connection between two wires, and thus has two wire severing edges
11 integrally formed with the contact 7 at one end of the housing
1, the other end of the housing 1 being formed with two bosses 12
to indicate the two notches 13 through which the wires must enter
the connector. There are no bosses 12 at the end of the housing 1
at which the wire severing edges 11 are positioned.
The connector shown in FIG. 5 is for providing a through splice
connection between two wires, and thus has two wire severing edges
11 formed on the contact 7 at opposite ends of the housing 1 and
each associated with a slot 9 of an individual one of the pairs of
aligned slots 9, and two bosses 12 at opposite ends of the housing
1 and associated with the notches 13 remote from the wire severing
edges 11.
Referring not to FIG. 6, this shows how a plurality of connector
housings 1 as shown in FIGS. 1 to 5 can be formed integrally in a
strip, joined end to end by means of bosses 12. When a contact has
been mounted in a housing 1 to make a connector for a particular
type of connection, then this connector is cut from the strip by
cutting the bosses 12 to give the connector the appropriate boss
coding to indicate its type and arrangement as discussed above.
Although in the connectors described above the bosses 12 are
provided adjacent the notches 13 having no wire severing edges 11
associated therewith, it will be appreciated that the opposite
arrangement in which the bosses 12 are provided adjacent the
notches 13 having wire severing edges 11 associated therewith, it
equally possible.
Further, as indicated in the drawings, the portions of the housing
1 between the slots 9 and the adjacent end walls of the housing 1,
or the associated wire severing edges 11, contain a grease or a
like sealing material in order to seal the connector hermetically
when applied to wires to be connected.
* * * * *